What It Was Really Like Inside The Kitchen On Texas' Death Row

Last month, Texas prison officials stopped the age-old tradition
of serving condemned prisoners a final meal of their choosing.

The New
York Times' Timothy Williams
spoke with Brian D. Price, a former inmate and death row chef
who cooked hundreds of final meals, often stretching his
imagination and culinary skills to turn commissary fare into
something gourmet.

Even though he's no longer cooking pre-execution dinners (despite
the fact that he offered to continue to do them for free), he
shared some crazy insights about what it's really like in the
death row kitchen.
Check out the full interview here.

No matter what prisoners requested, the meal had to be made
from stuff in the kitchen. That required some cooking
gymnastics, like turning frozen pollock into something
resembling strips of lobster, and making steak out of ground
hamburger meat.

The press was told that the prisoners were served what they
actually asked for, not what they got.

Requests came in on handwritten notes three days ahead of
time.

Final meals are dished out on schedule. Said Price:

They are served two hours before they are executed and it is no
longer a burger and fries or a bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich
or whatever they requested. All it is, two hours later, is
stomach content on an autopsy report.